Photo by Lon Horwedel via www.annarbor.com

Not to overstate things too much here, but in a period of time in which Michigan fans have come to accept a Boston Red Sox pre-2004 attitude of expecting the worst to happen, this is a chance for a brief glimmer of much overdue success.  Your Michigan Wolverines take to the ice tonight against the #1 seeded Miami RedHawks this evening at 8 pm EST tonight on Big Ten Network (huzzah!!!) in glorious HD.  When these two teams met back in November... well it kind of followed the November theme of all Michigan sports... Miami won with a deceptively appearing 3-1 score the first night in a game that saw Michigan dominate for large chunks of time only to have several (ahem) horrible breaks go the RedHawks way.  The following evening Miami proceeded to house the Wolverines with a 5-1 performance.  So yeah, there's that.  Interestingly, in CCHA tournament history, Michigan has never lost to Miami (4-0 all time, 1-0 when meeting in the semifinals).  That's not to shortchange Miami who has pretty much barnstormed the CCHA this year, finishing in first place by a rather comfortable (ahem) 20 point margin (!!).  In Ann Arbor.com's preview of the matchup Miami's coach, Enrico Blasi, had this to say about the impending matchup:

"We're not putting much stock in what we saw before," Blasi said in a conference call with reporters. "We know they're playing with a lot more confidence. It's going to be a war."  

We can certainly hope so at least.  Much more thorough breakdowns of tonight's contest can be found over at Yost Built,  and at mgoblog.  Be here prior to 8 for the live thread and of course GO BLUE!